WASHINGTON -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that increasing skilled foreign workers in the U.S. could mollify housing-price declines that have caused "the plunge in the value of the vast quantity of U.S. mortgage-based securities."

Mr. Greenspan said a separate group of workers, illegal immigrants, have made a "significant contribution" to the country's economic growth. He called for a temporary-worker program that could make use of that work force in a legal fashion.

"Unauthorized immigrants serve as a flexible component of our work force, often a safety valve when demand is pressing and among the first to be discharged when the economy falters," Mr. Greenspan said.

He called for a temporary-worker program that could make use of that work force in a legal fashion.

I'm really tired of the lie of omission. These clowns keep repeating the "We need a guest worker program" mantra, yet none of them has the courage to acknowledge that we have more of those than ever before. I really have to wonder if they actually have a limit in mind or are they just thinking they can fool us forever.

6
posted on 04/30/2009 2:22:34 PM PDT
by cripplecreek
(The poor bastards have us surrounded.)

Mr. Greenspan said a separate group of workers, illegal immigrants, have made a "significant contribution" to the country's economic growth.

Unskilled illegal labor is so cheap that businessmen do not invest in technology that would make Americans more productive. So, what really happens is business chases cheap labor because it is cheap. Communities subsidize the cheap labor raising the cost to Americans. Illegals have a net contribution in the red leading to a downward spiral, which is what we are now going through, negative growth. Greenspan is either senile or a liar. In other words he is not worth listening to.

I had to check the date at the link -- unbelievable. This is the kind of Free Traitor insanity that has prevailed over the past decade to artificially pump up housing prices and rents, while simultaneously deflating the salaries and wages of US citizens.

Nope. Greenspan gets it right. We do need DOCUMENTED workers. We need a system that issues work permits to foreign nationals that expire at a certain time and are regulated. What we have now is an uncontrolled border with zero documentation. As for allowing skilled immigrants or workers to come here and work, I believe that’s pretty much the way most of us (via our ancestors) got here in the first place.

Sure they did. By NOT paying taxes. By scamming every government social program under the sun, free medical care, free schooling, school lunches, free housing via welfare housing programs, free welfare, free food vouchers.

They also contribute to the legal system. Taxpayers pay for their free lawyers, and free housing in prison after their free day in court for : impaired driving, drug dealing, pimping, murder, break and enters, car theft, pimping, cooking crack, smuggling drugs.

Oh yea, real productive members of society they are.

Greenspan, shaddap already you dried up old prune. You've lost control of your faculties. That media prints the nonsense you babble explains why media is going bankrupt. It garbage nobody wants to read. They only buy the odd copy to line bird cages and kitty litter boxes, or to have on hand to get the fireplace fire going.

“Unauthorized immigrants serve as a flexible component of our work force, often a safety valve when demand is pressing and among the first to be discharged when the economy falters,” Mr. Greenspan said.”Sorry Alan, but the first to be discharged when the economy falters are not based on education or ethnicity, but simply on the fact that they are employed in sectors that are contracting faster than other sectors. Illegals serve no beneficial function in our society, they are not here out of a n overwhelming abundance of beneficence on their part, they are here sucking off of our economy, and demanding all of the social services that liberal idiots will give them with other peoples money.

India has 4 times more skilled workers than America yet their standard of living is much lower. That is because easy access to cheap labor discourages investment in automation.

If we couldn't import cheap immigrant labor, and their problems, we'd have new technology robots springing up all over the place, and our quality of living would move higher. In the cusp of the robotics age, cheap immigrant labor is lowering America's standard of living.

17
posted on 04/30/2009 2:37:28 PM PDT
by Reeses
(Leftism is powered by the evil force of envy.)

The normalized wage for unskilled construction labor from the late 1970’s to now should by $22.00 to $28.00 per hour by any measure you’d like to use, be it CPI, inflation rate, Average Wage Rate, or whatever.

The illegals who now dominate the unskilled construction labor market are paid $12 to $15 per hour from what I’ve heard.

Bottom line is that illegals have undercut the unskilled American labor market by about 50 percent.

So of course they have all those labor jobs. They work cheap, and send the money back to Mexico/Central American to buy that $20,000 10 acre ranch.

"Unauthorized immigrants serve as a flexible component of our work force..."

Mr. Greenspan, you need to refer to a dictionary more frequently.

Immigrant

Im"mi*grant\, n. [L. immigrans, p. pr. of immigrare to go into: cf. F. immigrant. See Immigrate.] One who immigrates; one who comes to a country for the purpose of permanent residence; -- correlative of emigrant.

(Emphasis Added)

An illegal alien is NOT the same thing as an immigrant!

Illegal foreign workers are NOT immigrants!

An immigrant comes to America to become an American.

20
posted on 04/30/2009 2:40:50 PM PDT
by TChris
(There is no freedom without the possibility of failure.)

“Unauthorized immigrants serve as a flexible component of our work force, often a safety valve when demand is pressing and among the first to be discharged when the economy falters,” Mr. Greenspan said.”

Well I guess he forgot small things like the standard of living and when demand is high that means Overtime and weekend work,Not the third world being allowed in to take Jobs.

22
posted on 04/30/2009 2:45:03 PM PDT
by Cheetahcat
(Osamabama Wright kind of Racist! We are in a state of War with Democrats)

--Among immigrants who arrived in 2006 or later unemployment is 13.3 percent.

--The number of unemployed immigrants increased 1.3 million (130 percent) since the third quarter of 2007. Among natives the increase was five million (81 percent).

--There is no way to know if the current trend will continue, but these very high unemployment rates for immigrants and natives raises the question of whether it makes sense to continue admitting so many new immigrants. In FY 2008, some 1.45 million new immigrants (temporary and permanent) were given work authorization.

--Unemployment has risen faster among the least educated immigrants. The unemployment rate for immigrants without a high school diploma has increased 9.9 percentage points since the third quarter of 2007 to 14.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009. For natives without a high school diploma it increased 7.9 percentage points to 19.5 percent during the same period.

Right now we are importing more than 120,000 foreign workers a month [1.45 million annually] and many of them are going on to the unemployment rolls. Our immigration policy is not linked to our economic needs. This is a scandal that needs to be exposed.

As for allowing skilled immigrants or workers to come here and work, I believe thats pretty much the way most of us (via our ancestors) got here in the first place.

That was then, this is now. Technology is at the point where autonomous robots are viable, without having to deal with immigrant problems. If it wasn't for cheap Central American labor, some of use would have high paying jobs building, programming, and servicing lettuce picking robots. If engineers and doctors didn't have their wages driven down by H-1Bs there would be more advanced software and other technology to leverage their productivity.

California spends an extra $10 billion per year on school, healthcare, and jails for illegals and their families. Run the math: how many robotic lettuce pickers could California buy every year for $10 billion, and give FREE to the farmers? How much more would the robot builders and employees pay in taxes compared to the immigrants? Which option would produce a better quality of American life?

24
posted on 04/30/2009 2:51:25 PM PDT
by Reeses
(Leftism is powered by the evil force of envy.)

A great racket. Certain people reap all the economic benefits and the middle class and lower class domestic riffraff pick up the tab economically, tax-wise and socially. But a stable society based on the centuries-old values of American respect for the law provided the environment that made their wealth possible in the first place. But if they destroy the fabric of life for the mass of Americans through massive abetting of law-breaking, their wealth will cannot forever insulate them from the consequences. Even the banana plantation owners had to periodically call in the marines from the home country to keep order. If the homeland becomes a giant banana plantaion, who will they call?

Mr. Greenspan said a separate group of workers, illegal immigrants, have made a "significant contribution" to the country's economic growth.

They've definitely made significant contributions to our budget deficits and national debt. Illegals suppress the wages of citizens, and make use of government programs that subsidize all low wage earners, including those whose wages gave been suppressed by the illegals.

Our federal and state and some local budgets contain programs that provide huge subsidies to low wages: the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, Medicaide, school lunch programs, child health care, all sorts of housing subsidies, and on and on.

All the schemes that provide cheap labor for employers add billions to federal and state budgets and deficits, which are nothing more than taxpayer subsidies for cheap labor. A truly enlightened government would stop the schemes that provide cheap labor, let wages be set by legal supply and demand, and realize many billions in reduced gov't subsidy programs for cheap labor.

But that would take some enlightenment which our bought and paid for folks in Congress are not now capable of.

Greenspan gets it right. We do need DOCUMENTED workers. We need a system that issues work permits to foreign nationals that expire at a certain time and are regulated.

See my post #23. We are already bringing in 1.45 million documented workers a year now. Every month including this one, we are bringing in over 120,000 foreign documented workers into this country either as immigrants or on non-immigrant work visas. And this during a time when we have 8.5% unemployment and the black unemployment is 13.3%. More than 13 million Americans are out of work and the number is growing, but the foreign workers still stream in. This is insanity.

As for allowing skilled immigrants or workers to come here and work, I believe thats pretty much the way most of us (via our ancestors) got here in the first place.

This isn't the America of our ancestors. We don't need mass immigration that brings in 1.2 million legal immigrants a year.

The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 36 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born. Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 306 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by 135 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the worlds third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any developed country in the world, i.e., 0.975% (2009 estimate), principally due to immigration.

Immigration, legal and illegal, has had and will continue to have a major and far-reaching impact across a broad spectrum of existential challenges that confront this nation, e.g., national security, the economy/global competitiveness, jobs, health care, taxes, energy independence, education, entitlement reform, law enforcement, social welfare programs, physical infrastructure, the environment, civil liberties, and a continued sense of national identity/shared sense of endeavor. Immigration is the defining issue of our time with enormous implications for the future of this nation and the preservation of our patrimony. Yet, seldom will you hear immigration mentioned by our political and intellectual elites in connection with these challenges.

The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 33 percent, compared to 19 percent for native households. The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 17 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the rate for natives and their children.

Massive low-skill immigration works to counteract government anti-poverty efforts. While government works to reduce the number of poor persons, low-skill immigration pushes the poverty numbers up. In addition, low-skill immigration siphons off government anti-poverty funding and makes government efforts to shrink poverty less effective.

This is by far the second-stupidest thing Greenspan said in his recently-released book. The first-stupidest thing was when he said rising asset prices in the housing market was justified due to productivity growth.

Increasing the supply of “skilled” foreign immigrants is merely a shortcut solution to the fact that our education system fails so many people in America in the ultimate goal of giving them marketable and economically-useful skills.

I have a better idea: lets mandate that colleges stop offering useless majors like political science (with a specialty in international relations) that radicalizes students and gives them skills useless in a competitive marketplace and stop massively handicapping our secondary students in math and science by forcing them to be taught by unionized public school teachers.

Maybe then they would major in something useful and be able to work some of these high-skilled jobs.

That would solve our shortage of skilled labor a lot more in the long run than giving jobs to foreigners who may have no interest of becoming Americans or staying here.

There are analogies to the antebellum plantation class transferring the costs of controlling slave labor to the point of inducing the non-slaveowing masses to civil war. In the end that scheme didn't work either.

You are exactly right. People are not widgets or units of labor. We are bringing in huge numbers of people who are not being assimilated or hold the values of our founders. Multiculturalism and diversity are changing the nation in very profound ways. We are squandering our patrimony never to be recovered. The 1965 Immigration Act changed our demographics and much more.

Multinational corporations have no alliegence to the US. They are just interested in improving the bottom line. The importation of exploitable, cheap labor subsidized at taxpayer expense is just fine regardless of the long term consequences for the future of this nation. What is good for GM is not necessarily good for America.

Ghostbusters? And by the way, aren't there some ten's of thousands of Indian economists that can immigrate and replace the current crop here in the USA? Maybe the shoe being on the other foot would cause an outbreak of common sense.

38
posted on 04/30/2009 4:38:53 PM PDT
by magooey
(The Mandate of Heaven resides in the hearts of men)

These comments by Greenspan are ridiculous. We elect members of Congress to pass laws. They passed immigration laws and yet in my home town there are hundreds of undocumented workers hanging out everyday in one area looking for work. Where is immmigration? Why are we not implementing the laws enacted by Congress? The illegals go to our hospitals, our public schools and you and I foot the bill through higher healthcare premiums and higher taxes. Why is there not more outrage that we don’t enforce our current laws? When we have have someone try to enforce these laws like Sheriff Joe, he is villified.

You just backed me up, running the numbers for yourself, stating that ONE IN EIGHT people walking around here don’t belong here. Even with the national percent of unemployment.

That’s WAY over the purported 12 million the mass media has been claiming for the last decade. Why do they keep lying about that when citizens can merely open a window to see and hear the invasion?

Not a coincidence but a purposeful result of Democrat and RINO policies.

Great observations by most on this thread. Does anyone have any suggestions as what to do? The Supreme Court has dictated (purposeful use of that word) that Americans have to support the basic necessities, health care and education of illegal aliens while no other country on this planet is so magnanimous with it’s citizens’ money.

Because most illegals come from countries South of North America and happen to be mixed Spanish and Indian the issue is purposely clouded in terms of racism. Accusations of racism make normally rational bureaucrats run squealing while waving a white flag of surrender. Thirty plus years of Socialist-saturated education is paying off for...

an illegal alien community organizer allergic to real work elected to the highest office in our nation. Has anyone else noticed that this guy’s got so much free time to cut commercials and narrate documentaries? And people criticized Reagan for delegating. This assclown’s no better than President Comacho from the movie “Idiocracy”. At least the fictional Comacho was supported across the board as opposed to this president being artificially supported through race bias.

But Jesse Jackson said African-Americans can’t be racists because they’re black. Make some sense of that because I can’t. And back to the subject: most Mexicans are technically white. The whites force their browns over our border because they dominate their shared government/drug cartel thing and use the more-Indians as tools for their personal means. Who are the racist’s there?

One more thing. Why do Jackson and Sharpton support Mexico’s racist policies?

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that increasing skilled foreign workers in the U.S. could mollify housing-price declines that have caused "the plunge in the value of the vast quantity of U.S. mortgage-based securities."

Huh? Are there magic companies out there that will simply create jobs to accommodate them so they can buy a house in this economy? This is open and willful verbal defecation.

45
posted on 05/01/2009 3:33:46 AM PDT
by raybbr
(It's going to get a lot worse now that the anchor babies are voting!)

Nope. Greenspan gets it right. We do need DOCUMENTED workers. We need a system that issues work permits to foreign nationals that expire at a certain time and are regulated. What we have now is an uncontrolled border with zero documentation. As for allowing skilled immigrants or workers to come here and work, I believe thats pretty much the way most of us (via our ancestors) got here in the first place.

I don't know how to respond to such pervasive and abject ignorance.

46
posted on 05/01/2009 3:37:13 AM PDT
by raybbr
(It's going to get a lot worse now that the anchor babies are voting!)

“One more thing. Why do Jackson and Sharpton support Mexicos racist policies?”Jackson and Sharpton are “race pimps”. They have and do make a rather good living extorting money from corporations, preying on their victims desire to avoid being labeled “racist”. While it is up to God to judge their motives, they both seem to be fond of “power brokering”. My opinion is they both deserve a special place in hell for the lives they've ruined with their lies and deception. I also believe that if “Hell” was located on Earth, we could solve the illegal immigration problem keeping them all employed full time constructing the “Liberal Politician” wing.

Calling what someone posts "ignorance" is not name calling. It's an objective opinion.

In your previous post you said, "As for allowing skilled immigrants or workers to come here and work, I believe thats pretty much the way most of us (via our ancestors) got here in the first place."

The ignorant part of that statement is glaring. Most immigrants that came to this country in the early 1900's were unskilled. Every one I knew whose grandparents came here were unskilled. They also came here to be Americans and left their country behind as opposed to what the illegals do. Ask any illegal, who has been been for over five years what he wants. He'll invariably tell you that he wants to make money. Not become an American.

Ask them what their country is and they will name some craphole south of the border.

Better yet, ask them if they would fight for the country where they are earnign their living. Do you think all these gardeners, dish washers and maids would fight FOR the U.S.?

Nope. Greenspan gets it right. We do need DOCUMENTED workers.

We have a system of documented workers. It's actually pretty elaborate.

We need a system that issues work permits to foreign nationals that expire at a certain time and are regulated.

We already have that, too. What happens is they overstay their permits and become illegal aliens (invaders) and the feds don't bother to try to find them.

What we have now is an uncontrolled border with zero documentation.

See, that's another ignorant part. That's not all we have. We have a system that allows for millions of foreign workers and legal immigrants. Not all illegals are border jumpers. As I said, they overstay and get lost in the U.S.

What we DO have now is a system where these illegals have no fear of being caught and prosecuted. These invaders are marching in the streets DEMANDING rights! And, people like Greenspan seem to think this is what comprises a country. Not borders and laws.

So, as I previously noted; your post is full of ignorance regarding the situation of illegals.

49
posted on 05/01/2009 4:45:17 AM PDT
by raybbr
(It's going to get a lot worse now that the anchor babies are voting!)

You just backed me up, running the numbers for yourself, stating that ONE IN EIGHT people walking around here dont belong here. Even with the national percent of unemployment.

I never said that. There are approximately 40 million foreign born residents in this country with about two thirds here legally. And yes we are still bringing in 1.45 million legal WORKERS a year through immigration and non-immigrant work visas. This doesn't include legal immigrants under 18 and over 65. The total number is around 2 million annually.

Thats WAY over the purported 12 million the mass media has been claiming for the last decade. Why do they keep lying about that when citizens can merely open a window to see and hear the invasion? Not a coincidence but a purposeful result of Democrat and RINO policies.

I agree with you that these numbers have been understated by the USG and the open borders types. Bear-Stearns did a report several years ago that estimated the number of illegal aliens at 20 million and some other estimates have it as high as 30 milliion.

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